Matt Rutledge, founder and CEO of Woot, and the grandfather of the daily deal, is stepping down from his position, two years after the website sold to Amazon.com. In an email sent to staffers, and subsequently posted to the community’s website, Rutledge said that he was resigning his position effective June 15th to “move on to future projects with fewer acronyms.”Woot was founded way back in 2004, and became a pioneer in the burgeoning “daily deals” market. It sought to give visitors one deal a day, posted to the website (like clockwork) at midnight. As the site grew and the deals improved, items regularly sold out just minutes after they were posted — esp[...]

As Gen Y?a generation practically born texting and tweeting?continues to become the dominant customer base, companies will soon interact with customers almost exclusively via social media. And social media shifts the power and influence in the buying process from companies to customers.Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yammer, Flickr (and the list now goes on and on) have changed the world. What started out as a way to hunt down old high school pals has revolutionized how we communicate with friends, family, and businesses.On the business side, a few retweets, and a single offhand comment can spark a PR disaster. Papa John?s realized this when a photo of a racist comment on a receipt blew up on[...]

This is the first week I can remember where a single Android phone is reportedly outselling Apple’s iPhone at one carrier. According to a research note from�William Blair, that’s exactly what’s happening at Verizon stores. A check of inventory and sales indicated Motorola’s Droid Razr is topping the iPhone 4S, which is good news for Motorola and its new owner, Google.It’s possible that Verizon’s LTE network is part of this surge for the Android-powered Razr: Without an LTE iPhone on any carrier, the Razr — and other Android phones — can deliver mobile broadband speeds topping 20 Mbps or more; as fast as wired broadband at home. The iPhone 4S h[...]

Uber, the breakthrough car service app with big ambitions to do much more, is now making its way to international markets: today the car service company kicked off its London operation with a soft launch, just in time to start prepping for the summer tourist rush and the visitor onslaught also known as the Summer Olympics.The launch is still at a very early stage — with “secret Ubers” prowling the roads, and the company still in research mode to figure out the best way of tackling the city according a blog post on Uber’s site. London, like many other European cities, is a tangle of streets — Black cab drivers have to pass a special test called “the knowle[...]